Quick note this week but it was great to see us enjoying some good fellowship and time together. Only a few of us this week due a number of reasons, time of year and the odd sickness. This doesn't stop us from having a good time though and we look forward to everyone's return.
Next week we are privileged to get a good look at St John of God hospital, that should be a great night and I hope as many as possible will get to see this event. I won't be able to make it due to my wedding anniversary do I'll look forward to the fine.
David reminded us that subs are due and payable NOW and that he and Darcy are working on the required revision to the Constitution.
In announcements :
BRUCE said thanks for support on the death of his brother
PAUL reminded members that nest week we'll be at St John Of God Hospital for our meeting
JACKO asked for volunteers to "finish off" at Barb Cox's place.
COLIN let us know about the planned trip to the Theatre of the Winged Unicorn for Wuthering Heights on October 23rd.
Then David (otherwise known as Blobie, but not until later) gave us an interesting, technical and very revealing presentation on the de-branding resulting from the sale of the Shell refinery and also the work which he's doing at present based on Infra Red imaging. Sort of Dr David stuff !!!
By Anne Riechert, a 2010-12 Rotary Peace Fellow, International Christian University
Saturday morning, Paul Knyff shared his favorite Rotary moment with the more than 1,800 Rotarians attending the first Rotary Global Peace Forum in Berlin. Having been involved with Rotary Youth Exchange, Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) and the Rotary Peace Centers program for more than a decade, I asked myself what my favorite Rotary moment had been. It felt a little like picking a favorite child. I would like to share with you, however, my favorite moment from the forum.
Friday afternoon, I was almost done setting up my We Have a Dream exhibition in the forum’s MarketPlace of projects, when an Italian Rotarian approached me. One particular drawing had moved him. An 11-year old Massai girl in Kenya had made the drawing. Her wish was to become a lawyer, when she grew up, and her dream was that justice would be done in Kenya.
Being a lawyer himself, the Rotarian felt he might be able to make a difference. My limited Italian and his limited English, however, made communication difficult, but with the kind help of his bi-lingual granddaughter, we were able to talk. The Rotarian decided to reach out and wrote a letter to the girl, letting her know that she should contact him and let him know how he could assist her making her dream come true.
Although a lot of wise words and good intentions were shared from the main stage of the forum, that small act of compassion clearly manifested to me how Rotarians across the world can build peace.
Peace can indeed be a difficult concept to comprehend, but to me peace is a verb, not a noun. Peace is the small actions, which we can all do, everyday, to reach out and use our competencies, networks and knowledge to assist people in need.
If you are interested in doing more peace related work through Rotary I highly encourage you to join the newly established Rotarian Action Group for Peace or learn more about the Rotary Peace Fellowship.
The last couple of months have been very busy for Interplast's programs team, reflecting on the achievements from the 2014/15 financial year and reviewing all of our country programs.
Thanks to your support, in the 2014/15 financial year we implemented 58 program activities, an increase of 14% from the previous year. This included 31 training activities, 15 surgical activities, 6 planning and evaluation activities and 6 activities providing institutional support.
One of our major tasks for the past few months has been planning for the 17 individual annual country program plans for the 2015/16 period. Each of these 17 annual plans includes the various activities for each country, which are developed in collaboration with our local partners.
In addition to planning and reviewing, in June and July we implemented 10 program activities, including training of surgeons in PNG, Myanmar and Fiji, a craniofacial surgery program to Sri Lanka, nurse education in Kiribati, the Solomon Islands and Myanmar, training for a plastic surgeon from Laos in Perth, and providing institutional support to our partners in Mongolia and Nepal.
2015/16 promises to be another exciting and ambitious year at Interplast, with another 35% increase in programs planned. These planned programs have been developed in close collaboration with our local partners in each country where we work and with our volunteer Country Coordinators.
In the year ahead your support will be vital to make our plans possible. There are so many great ways to get involved with Interplast.
Polio this week as of 26 August 2015 The Expert Review Committee met in Nigeria last week to review the progress made in Nigeria, identify ways to strengthen the gains of the last few years and identify the major risks to stopping polio across the country.
A project to improve access to hard-to-reach (HTR) populations in Nigeria with polio vaccines is having a dramatic impact on the broader health needs of remote communities, demonstrating the legacy of polio eradication in action.
Wild poliovirus type 1 and Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus cases
Did you hear about the guy in Paris who almost got away with stealing several paintings from the Louvre?
After planning the crime, getting in and out past security, he was captured only two blocks away when his Econoline ran out of gas.
When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied: "Monsieur, I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh."
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